Weight loss

Get started today, by understanding why it is so hard

Are you finding it more difficult than ever to lose weight? If so, you may have become insulin resistant. An easy way to find out is to check your waist circumference. Males with a waistline measurement of more than 102cm and females more than 88cm have a high chance of having insulin resistance.

Despite what you may have been told, losing weight is difficult, everyone is different and there is no quick-fix solution. The reasons why people gain or fail to lose weight are numerous and scientifically rather complex. From our ever-increasing understanding of the biochemistry and genetics of obesity, one thing is clear; being overweight has a strong underlying biological foundation which can prove very difficult to overcome. What this means is that while you can make the physiological decision to lose weight and stick with it, your own body might not make it so easy.

Why do I gain weight so easily?

One gains weight because of the progressive accumulation of body fat and in some cases, additional tissue fluid. This process isbased on two different mechanisms. The first involves growth of your existing fat cells, in other words, the ones that you were born with. Depending on your genetics, environment in the womb and other factors you may be at a disadvantage from day one, starting with more fat cells that are better and more efficient at storing fat.

The second, somewhat lessor known but equally important mechanism relates to how adults constantly make new fat cells, called adipocytes in medical terms, through the biological process of adipogenesis. This not only takes place in one’s existing fatty tissue, where new fat cells are squashed in-between those that already exist, but also begins to happen in other parts of one’s body which, under normal conditions, would not contain many fat cells. Once manufactured, these new fat cells start to accumulate more fat and progressively grow in size. Besides causing general weight-gain, these two mechanisms also lead to the progressive enlargement and distortion of fatty tissue, often referred to as ‘cellulite’ in cosmetic terms.The ability of fat cells to both grow and multiply therefore leads to an exponential increase in fatty tissue.

Added to the above, as your body puts on fat, it also accelerates this increase in fat. New research has shown that compared to lean adults, obese adults produce about twice as many new fat cells every year. Having built up a large supply of fat cells, and with each new cell making it easier to add to the pool,it is not surprising that so many overweight and obese people find it very hard to lose, and so easy to gain, weight.

More than a numbers game…

It is a generally accepted medical fact that excess body fat causes ill health. It is also known that the body has various self-regulating healing mechanisms that control or counteract disease. Ideally, one would expect the same to happen with excess body fat.

On the contrary, however, once fat cells progressively fill with fat, an odd and somewhat counterproductive phenomenon occurs. Instead of releasing its fat, which for obvious reasons would be beneficial to the ailing body, engorged fat cells start to safeguard their fatty content by progressively decreasing the release of fat. They also begin to tell other fat cells to do the same and to multiply in areas where fat would not usually be prevalent, such as the liver. Modern researchers searching for clues as to why this happens have discovered that the secret largely lies with the fact that engorged fat cells initiate a cellular communication process through the release of certain chemical messenger molecules, called ‘adipokines’. These messenger molecules start to communicate not only with cells in the immediate area, but also with other cells in distant parts of the body. Some adipokines trigger the formation of new fat cells whilst others disrupt the normal functioning of insulin, the hormone that controls metabolism.

The importance of insulin resistance

Although insulin is the dominant regulator of blood sugar control and therefore plays a crucial role in health, various studies have demonstrated that chronically elevated insulin levels alsocauses you to gain weight. This is due to the fact that insulin plays an intricate role in the body’s ability to store fat. Insulin as a hormone essentially puts your body into an energy storing mode, increasing the storage and creation of new fat, and making it harder to use this fat for energy. Insulin resistance is a condition during which the body fails to respond to the normal regulatory effects of insulin. Trying to overcome this, the body compensates by producing more insulin, causing blood insulin levels to rise.

Once insulin resistance sets in, your metabolism effectively slows down and it becomes increasingly more difficult to lose weight. This is because, with insulin resistance, fat cells stop releasing fat, leaving you virtually incapable of shedding those unwanted kilos.

Insulin resistance can be managed

In summary, you may be experiencing a real uphill struggle with your weight because:

• You have more body fat, but that’s only part of the problem.

• You most likely also have more fat cells.

• In addition, you are adding to that pool by making new fat cells at twice the rate of a lean person.

• To crown it all, your fat cells, because of the likely presence of insulin resistance, will biochemically be significantly less inclined to release their stored fat.

In order to lose weight, the modern therapeutic approach to improve your metabolism follows a strategy which optimises your body’s biochemical processes in such a manner that it simultaneously alleviates insulin resistance, suppresses the storage capabilities of fat by existing fat cells and prevents the continual formation of new fat cells. Therapies able to regulate both the size and number of fat cells over the long term have therefore become a new therapeutic goal to help treat overweight and obese individuals. In addition, this strategy should also help you to regulate your appetite.

But how can this be achieved?

Losing weight is not easy, but by rationally developing and actively implementing a weight loss plan based on all the different contributors to insulin resistance and fat accumulation, it can be achieved. Depending on the extent of weight you wish to lose, and underlying health conditions, this process may need to involve active participation from your healthcare provider, including various medications. In most cases, however, actively adjusting your lifestyle to focus on healthy habits together with complementary supplements can be enough to see a satisfactory change.

In order to get started on your journey towards a healthy lifestyle and slimmer body,follow these two simple steps: